9 random things that happened on this day, March 10th, in showbiz history...
1938 The 10th annual Academy Awards are held honoring the films of 1937. The Life of Emile Zola wins Best Picture, the second consecutive biopic to win, cementing the agonizing fact that Oscar then and now obsesses over the snooziest of all film genres, the biopic, more than any of its far more interesting cousins. It beat screwball classic The Awful Truth, the actressexual bliss of Stage Door, the non-musical Janet Gaynor version of A Star is Born, and other superior films. Meanwhile Luise Rainer became the first actor in movie history to pull off a two consecutive year Oscar coup with her second win for her yellowface performance in The Good Earth...
1948 The 5th annual Golden Globes are held. They had not yet split into drama and comedy so the winners were very similar to the upcoming Oscars honoring the films of 1947 with Gentleman's Agreement triumphant in Pic, Director and Supporting Actress, Edmund Gwenn winning for his Kris Kringle in Miracle on 34th Street and Ronald Colman winning Best Actor for A Double Life. The Globes disagreed with the Oscars on Lead Actress though: It was Rosalind Russell for Mourning Becomes Electra at the Globes and, later, Oscar going for Loretta Young in The Farmer's Daughter.
1960 The 17th Golden Globes are held honoring the films of 1959. This was the second year during a short experiment (1958-1962) when the Globes divvied up their Best Picture into three categories (Drama, Comedy, and Musical) though Comedy and Musical had to share an acting category (strange right?) so there were three Best Pictures: Ben-Hur, Some Like It Hot, and Porgy & Bess. but only four lead acting categories. Elizabeth Taylor (Suddenly Last Summer) and Marilyn Monroe (Some Like It Hot) both won Best Actress. From what we can gather Liz wasn't there that night (or at least there aren't clearly identifiable surviving photos) which is probably a good thing. Would the world have ever recovered from two movie stars that blazingly charismatic and glamorous both winning trophies at the peak of their beauty and acting powers on the very same night? People talk so much smack about the Globes (sometimes with good reason) but you can't deny that with their mix of categories they've also honored the wonder of the movies over the years in a way that the less flexible Academy has rarely been able to. The Globes also awarded brilliant Jack Lemmon for Some Like It Hot and Stephen Boyd for his awesome best-in-show work in Ben-Hur that night. All of the Globe acting winners lost at the Oscars that season.
1975 The Rocky Horror Show opens on Broadway after a runs in London, Los Angeles, Sydney, and Copehhagen. The sci-fi horror musical about a newly engaged couple chancing upon a transvestite mad scientist one dark and story night was not successful on the Great White Way closing quickly. It received just one Tony nomination (Lighting Design) but quickly becomes a movie which makes the show immortal over the long haul with infinite midnight screenings across decades for the next decade plus. The show was revived in 2000 and ran for two years
1981 Kim Carnes drops the single "Bette Davis Eyes" which becomes a smash hit and wins the Grammy for Record and Song of the Year. Bette Davis was still alive and sent thank you letters and roses to the songwriters and Kim Carnes. There is a photo of Bette with Kim on the internet but we don't know if its real or not.
1988 Andy Gibb, singer and heartthrob (brother to the Bee-Gees) dies at just 30 years of age
1995 Australian sleeper hit comedy Muriel's Wedding, which sets Toni Collette and Rachel Griffiths on the path to big careers, and the pandemic thriller Outbreak are the new releases in US movie theaters on this day.
1997 Buffy the Vampire Slayer premieres with the "Welcome to the Hellmouth" episode. The show will prove hugely influential, critically acclaimed, and run for 7 seasons though all mainstream awards bodies will basically ignore it. The then-quite stuffy Emmys ignored its first season outside of a nomination for Best Makeup for this episode. The highest profile Emmy nomination it will receive during its run was a writing Emmy for the classic "Hush" episode from season 4. The very shortlived AFI Awards (Drama Series of the Year for season 6) and the Golden Globes (Best Actress Drama Series for season 5) give it its only high profile nominations during its entire run.
2017 Kong Skull Island opens in movie theaters. Can't remember anyone being excited about this but somehow we're the franchise is unkillable. Godzilla vs Kong arrivse simultaneously on HBOMax and in theaters on March 31st.
Today's Birthday Suit
Happy 37th to Austrian actor Robert Finster (Tribes of Europa, Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe) who starred as Sigmund Freud on the streaming series Freud last year. We meant to watch that. Did you ever check it out?
Other showbiz birthdays today: Oscar nominated superstar Sharon Stone (Basic Instinct, Casino), Emmy winner Jon Hamm (Mad Men, The Town), Chuck Norris (Missing in Action, Delta Force), actress/director Olivia Wilde (Booksmart, Tron), Jasmine Guy (Harlem Nights, A Different World), Madeleine Arthur (Snowpiercer, Big Eyes), Emily Osment (The Kominksy Method, Hannah Montana the Movie), Oscar nominated writer/director Paul Haggis (Crash, Million Dollar Baby), Rafe Spall (The Big Short, Life of Pi), Danny Pudi (Community, DuckTales), Paget Brewster (DuckTales, Criminal Minds), Katharine Houghton (Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Kinsey), Thomas Middleditch (Silicon Valley, Godzilla King of Monsters), Austria's Robert Finster (Freud, Tribes of Europa), Japan's Shin Koyamada (Last Samurai), Oscar nominated screenwriter Scott Frank (Logan, Get Shorty, Out of Sight), Oscar nominated Sam Jaffe (The Asphalt Jungle, The Day After the Earth Stood Still), Oscar nominated cinematographer Robert D Yeoman (Grand Budapest Hotel, Drugstore Cowboy), Oscar winning screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin (Ghost, Brainstorm), and undervalued cinematographer Maryse Alberti (The Wrestler, Velvet Goldmine), Belgiums Luc Dardenne (of the Dardenne brothers), Playmate Shannon Tweed, singers Carrie Underwood, Edie Brickell, and Robin Thicke.
And late greats like Oscar nominated brilliant director Gregory La Cava (Stage Door, My Man Godfrey), Oscar winner Barry Fitzgerald (Going My Way, The Quiet Man), Richard Haydn (The Sound of Music, Young Frankenstein), and Joe Viterelli (Analyze This, Bulles Over Broadway)